The key US ally had sought the suspension of all non-emergency V-22 Osprey flights over its territory after one fell into the sea on Wednesday in western Japan.
Pilot error is rarely the actual cause, but is a convenient scapegoat. I worked in rotary accident investigation in the Army and that’s not something you’ll read in a report. There’s other issues; why is this aircraft in particular so prone to pilot error? Perhaps it’s poorly designed?
It’s because it’s a heavy rotorcraft. Not poor design, just rotorcraft physics. It’s prone to enter a vortex ring state if the descent rate in relation to forward velocity is too high. The same thing can happen with any normal helicopter, but the V-22 has a lot of weight for the disk area of it’s rotors, giving stronger vortices from the rotors.
It’s a pilot training thing, but I think they did put some sort of alert system on it if it’s getting close to the conditions that induce VRS.
Pilot error is rarely the actual cause, but is a convenient scapegoat. I worked in rotary accident investigation in the Army and that’s not something you’ll read in a report. There’s other issues; why is this aircraft in particular so prone to pilot error? Perhaps it’s poorly designed?
It’s because it’s a heavy rotorcraft. Not poor design, just rotorcraft physics. It’s prone to enter a vortex ring state if the descent rate in relation to forward velocity is too high. The same thing can happen with any normal helicopter, but the V-22 has a lot of weight for the disk area of it’s rotors, giving stronger vortices from the rotors.
It’s a pilot training thing, but I think they did put some sort of alert system on it if it’s getting close to the conditions that induce VRS.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_ring_state
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/2022/06/28/ntsb-jim-clayton-fault-fatal-tennessee-river-helicopter-crash/7760608001/
https://verticalmag.com/news/ntsb-report-virginia-state-police-helicopter-crash/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_mwUCiiEHos
Like I said, poor design. Wrong tool for the job.
It can’t travel slow enough for blackhawks nor fast enough for fixed wing. The V-22 is an absolute turd.
Read all the links, it’s nothing unique to the V-22. All rotorcraft suffer from the same condition.
Pilots just have to be careful while descending with low forward velocity.
I repeat - tiny heavily loaded rotors are the wrong tool for the job thus making it a bad design